Infrastructure
The REÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥V Unmanned Aircraft Fleet consists of aircraft ranging in size and performance from the 1-lb, 14-inch wingspan ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥MAV, to the 11-ft wingspan, 45-lb Pilatus P1-A that can carry up to 12 pounds of payload. With a 10 ft wingspan, the AresMax is the second generation of the original Ares UAS used in the first Ad Hoc UAS & Ground Network (AUGNet) experiments. Electric-powered NexSTAR UAS are the workhorses for current networking experiments. One of the four Tempest UAS, designed for in-situ sensing in severe thunderstorms, was the first UAS to penetrate and sample supercell thunderstorms. All unmanned aircraft are flown under Federal Aviation Administration Certificates of Authorization (COAs).
The REÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥V Indoor Flying Robot Lab (R-IFRL) contains a 30 ft x 60 ft x 20 ft motion capture system housed in 1800 ft2 of space in the new REÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥V Aerorobotics Lab. The REÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥V Robot Sensor Network is comprised of a team of iRobot Create robots and Smart Quadrotor Unmanned Autonomous Demonstrator (SQUAD) aerial robots equipped with onboard sensors, computation, and wireless networking. The hardware components of the test bed include: iRobot Create and SQUAD robots equipped with ad-hoc wireless communication; stationary communication nodes; three PC computers connected to a base node to control and monitor the system; and four overhead cameras to provide robot pose. Sensors onboard the robots include cameras and magnetic tracking beacons.
The mobile Ground Control Station (GCS) is a command, control, and communications (C3) center housed inside a customized 15-passenger van. The mobile GCS is equipped with VHF voice radios, a 900-MHz mechanical tracking antenna for direct UAS command and control, and a 2.4-GHz phased-array WiFi antenna to support the autonomy-enabling NetUAS C3 architecture.​
The Unmanned Vehicle Systems Integration Lab is located in the Engineering College’s Discovery Learning Center. It houses Computing facilities, electronics work benches, and test equipment enable hardware/software integration and hardware-in-the-loop testing of mobile sensing systems. The Unmanned Systems Fabrication Lab, located in the Engineering Center, provides software design tools, machine, and power tools for unmanned vehicle design and construction.​
A new Low-Speed Wind Tunnel has been built in the . The wind tunnel is an open-return Wenham (Blower) type low-speed tunnel designed and manufactured by . It has a 0.8 m square test-section that is 5 m long. The tunnel is driven by a 100 HP motor to achieve test section velocities up to approximately 65 m/s (Mach 0.2). Significant portions of the test section are constructed from cast optical-grade acrylic providing unobstructed optical access throughout most of the field.